What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on CA-6 Authorization?

Assessment, authorization, and monitoring policy; Procedures addressing authorization; System security plan, privacy plan, assessment report, plan of action and milestones; Authorization statement; Test of Mechanisms that facilitate authorizations and updates.

What is the most common gap auditors find on CA-6?

No senior official is formally assigned as authorizing official for the system or for inheritable common controls

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · CA - Assessment, Authorization, and Monitoring

`CA-6` Authorization

a. Assign a senior official as the authorizing official for the system; b. Assign a senior official as the authorizing official for common controls available for inheritance by organizational systems; c. Ensure that the authorizing official for the system, before commencing operations: 1. Accepts the use of common controls inherited by the system; and 2. Authorizes the system to operate; d. Ensure that the authorizing official for common controls authorizes the use of those controls for inheritance by organizational systems; e. Update the authorizations organization-defined frequency.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, CA-6. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 in the compliance library.

Base controls and their enhancements. Which apply follows the baseline you are assessed against (for example FedRAMP Moderate or High, or the low, moderate and high baselines of SP 800-53B). Text in square brackets is a parameter your organisation sets.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Test of Mechanisms that facilitate authorizations and updates · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Assessment, authorization, and monitoring policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing authorization · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System security plan, privacy plan, assessment report, plan of action and milestones · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Authorization statement · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

No senior official is formally assigned as authorizing official for the system or for inheritable common controls
The system went into operation without an authorization decision, and authorizations are not updated at the defined frequency

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

CA-5(1) Plan of Action and Milestones | Automation Support for Accuracy and Currency · CA-6(1) Authorization | Joint Authorization: Intra-organization